I Am A Jedi, Like My Grandma Before Me
by rthstewart
Summary: Lucy keeps her own counsel on who is to be trained at the Village Preschool. A short tale in the Commoner Royalty, Everybody Lives, Nobody Dies AU.


Lucy keeps her own counsel on who is to be trained at the Village Preschool. A part of the Commoner Royalty, Everybody Lives, Nobody Dies AU.

* * *

"Grandma?"

"Yes, Anne?"

"Some of the boys are mean in my class."

Lucy pulls the car into the parking space of the preschool. It is her turn to volunteer and she had thought it to be a day of fingerpainting, storytelling (Lucy's stories are always _very_ popular), and tromping around the pond looking for frogs and butterflies.

She turns off the car and twists in the seat to look at her granddaughter. "Are they mean to you?"

Anne shrugs in her car seat and fiddled with the buckles. "Sometimes."

Her granddaughter had not been exhibiting any signs of stress with the programme. She always seemed eager to go to her school.

"Do they hurt you?" Lucy asks.

Anne shakes her head and her pigtails fly about and flap against the side of her head. "No. They know they can't do that."

_They most certainly cannot._

"They make me mad sometimes."

"Getting mad is perfectly justified when people are unjust to you. What do the boys do?"

Anne looks up from her study of her grubby trainers and her ironic grin was, Lucy suspects, a mirror image of her own. "They say girls can't like Star Wars."

"What?!" Lucy exclaims, sounding so exaggerated with wide-eyed mocking shock Anne giggles and snorts. "Surely your school does not admit such foolish boys!"

"I knoooow," Anne says, wriggling out of her seat and grabbing her battered Millennium Falcon lunchbox. "Boys are so dumb."

During outdoor time, Lucy conducts Jedi Training. She's Mon Mothma and Master Yoda combined and she trains five Princess Leias in lightsaber techniques. Lucy mimics lines about Bothan spies and is fluent in Yoda-speak. _Do or do not. There is no try._

Lucy knows all the lines and the funny ones about pants, too. _I find your lack of pants disturbing,_ she intones and the girls all giggle.

The school doesn't allow weapons, but Lucy improvises. She gets a little impatient with the films' fight choreography for all that she's seen Star Wars (always _Star Wars_, never _A New Hope_ and Han shot first) 42 times counting the re-runs on television. Bob Anderson was teaching actors sword stunts but she knows the real thing and what looks exciting on stage or screen would separate your head from your neck in real broadsword combat.

Her Jedi Apprentices-Princess Leias and the boys who mock them don't know that, though, and expect flashy manoeuvres so Lucy indulges in theatrics. She's not as young as she used to be when she drilled with Satyrs and Dryads in the Cair Paravel training yard but Queen Lucy the Valiant, Knight of the Order of the Lion, can still wield a broom handle with dashing aplomb, if she does say so herself.

The little girls confidently stand before her, her Jedi Apprentices and Princesses-in-training. Lucy calls out commands. _Dodge! Thrust! Parry! Cut! Slice! Strike! Counter-strike!_ Lightsabers are different from two-handed broadswords, of course, as every surface cuts.

She remembers how it cut. How much it infuriated her to be told that she, a ruling Queen, could not do all those things, say those things, think those thoughts. So many things others tried to keep from her, denied because of her age and her sex. There's been quite enough of that foolishness and she'll slice to ribbons anyone who tells her daughters and nieces, and their daughters, any differently.

It's why she and Jack got on so well from the very beginning. Her husband of over 40 years never liked the word _No,_ either.

The boys watch their Jedi Training in abject envy. They try to start something on their own but finally give up and one of them asks Anne if they can get instruction from the Master, too.

"Grandma Lucy isn't just a swordmaster and really good at Star Wars," Anne tells the boy with smug superiority Lucy won't correct. "She's a Queen, too!"

The boys all bow, nod, and bob, and now, finally, ask very politely if they also might join her Jedi Academy.

Lucy rests on her broom handle and scowls. "My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. They are not ready!" She winks at Anne who giggles again.

"They are too old to begin the training!"

The boys all clamour and plead and assure her that they are not afraid.

With much dramatic sighing, Lucy relents. "Very well." She peers over her glasses and down her nose at the boys who all stare wistfully up at her. "However, I become _very_ cross with those who say girls can't like Star Wars. Girls can like the same things that boys do and boys can like the same things that girls do." She pauses and it's full-on Queen Lucy the Valiant speaking again, the words rolling off with regal, authoritative splendour. "Is that clear?"

The boys nod eagerly and mutter, "Yes, Ma'am."

Lucy tosses the broom handle into the air, catches it, and twirls it about. "Then let us begin!"

* * *

I wrote this for katharhino who wanted AU Pevensies and Star Wars when I took prompts for Give Me All The Happy on my Live Journal. There may be a bit of projection going on here. A little. OK, maybe a lot.


End file.
